Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection

Organized thematically, the exhibition offers a glimpse into 17th-century life in the Netherlands. People take center stage, as seen in portraits and character studies capturing the social aspirations and individuality of the era’s citizens. Also on view are engaging depictions of everyday activities: market vendors selling their wares, soldiers playing cards, youths engrossed in books, and women writing letters or playing music. Religious and mythological subjects, commonly shown in private homes, reveal the period’s spiritual and intellectual pursuits.

Rembrandt is the artist at the exhibition’s heart, with works representing all periods of his career. Complementing his paintings are those by artists intimately connected to him in Amsterdam, including his teacher Pieter Lastman and pupils Ferdinand Bol, Govaert Flinck, and Arent de Gelder, among others. The exhibition also features artists working in Rembrandt’s hometown of Leiden, including his friend and rival Jan Lievens and student Gerrit Dou, as well as Jan Steen, Frans van Mieris, and Gabriel Metsu. Painters who worked in other Dutch artistic centers are also represented, such as Hendrick ter Brugghen, Carel Fabritius, Frans Hals, Gerard ter Borch, and Johannes Vermeer.

Coinciding with the 400th anniversary of New Amsterdam's founding on the island of present-day Manhattan, Art and Life in Rembrandt's Time marks Florida’s first large-scale exhibition of Rembrandt’s paintings. This rare convergence of 17th-century Dutch masterpieces showcases the enduring power of Rembrandt and his contemporaries — artists whose influence has shaped artistic trajectories from Impressionism to the modern era and continues to resonate today.

Accompanying the exhibition is a fully illustrated, 150-page catalogue exploring Dutch life in the 1600s and providing detailed entries on each work.